[jerseygirl]

Brain dead here. Is anthrax spread person to person, or do you have to come into contact with the powder?

[Senator Pardek]

Not contagious.

[stlnative]

You have to breath it, ingest it, or get it on your skin. It does not take much... but you cannot catch like you would a cold unless the person has the particles on them.
Depending how you are exposed... will depend on which type you get and your rate of survival. My guess is you could get it a 3 depending on how you were exposed to it.

[what's up]

The powder is disseminated in the air and the teeny-tiniest amount will kill one.

That's why the terrorists were exploring flying crop-dusters to disseminate it; it's a deadly weapon.

If there was one Iraqi ordered to do this, I wonder how many others are out there?

[pttttt]

Brain dead here. Is anthrax spread person to person, or do you have to come into contact with the powder?

Not brain dead at all, good question. Here's a non-expert answer with the usual disclaimers: AFAIK it's deadliest if you inhale the spores and the spores are very persistant with a long dormant life; that's what killed people in the US mail attacks which we still apparently have no clue as to who did it (shouldn't the FBI do a genetic match on this to the mail anthrax??). It can also make you real sick if you swallow spores or get them through a wound. But the heavy killer is respiratory anthrax, which requires inhalation.

It's not known to be contagious at all person to person and it's curable with antibiotics. This makes it a little less scary but more usable as a weapon because it's more manageable.

Smallpox on the other hand is way contagious person to person and there's no cure. Which is why I would get a smallpox vaccination tomorrow if I could.

Corrections welcome. I don't claim to know what I'm talking about.

[APBaer]

"Is anthrax spread person to person"

No that would be if it were "contagious"

You must have pwesonal contact with the anthrax spores